Thursday, February 20, 2014

Our BFFs at Reston Now bring us the tale of a group of Reston residents who live across crowded -- and noisy -- Wiehle Avenue from the fenced-in dog run at Baron Cameron Park that are threatening to sue the county park authority and a local dog group because all the barking disrupts the soothing Zen soundscape of cars, trucks, and the occasional rescue vehicle zipping by on Wiehle.

Give us some good blockquote, BFFs at Reston Now:

The people upset about the noise live in the Longwood Grove subdivision, which is separated from the dog run by a buffer area of trees, as well as four lanes of Wiehle Avenue.

“My firm represents several residents in the Longwood Grove neighborhood located across the street from the Baron Cameron OLDA [off-leash dog area],” wrote attorney Zachary Williams of the firm Bean, Kinney & Korman. “The operation of this dog park has caused these residents to suffer constant and excessive nuisance noise for many years.”

For their part, the park did install noise-abating fencing on one side of the doggie park. Some more sweeeeet blockquote, por favor:

The county has done its own tests and found no measurable noise coming from the park.“The traffic noise on Wiehle is louder than the dog noise,” said [Park Authority Chair] Bill Bouie.

The dog park's been there for around 15 years. So why threaten to sue now? According to the attorney's letter quoted on Reston Now, current plans to revise the park's master plan are an opportunity to move or close the dog park for good. (Of course, when the parks authority decides to go forward with building the awesome new rec center in that very location after all, will these same folks be happy about the additional road noise and traffic and discarded Orange Julius cups? One can only wonder.)

We can see it now: A groundbreaking lawsuit against the descendants of Carl Adolph Max Wiehle for founding a drunken village which became the namesake of a noisy street near a dog park.

As of yet, there's been no response from supporters of the dog park, but in a Restonian World Exclusive, we've learned they've gained the support of a very important celebrity:

Trust me, the day will come when they will wish that a dog park was all they had to deal with. Wait until Fairfax County and their cadre of developers have finished paving over the last open space south of Baron Cameron.

Hello listeners. To start things off I’ve been asked to read this brief notice: the city council announces the opening of a new dog park at the corner of Earl and Summerset near the Ralph’s. They would like to remind everyone that dogs are not allowed in the dog park. People are not allowed in the dog park. It is possible you will see hooded figures in the dog park. Do not approach them. Do not approach the dog park. The fence is electrified and highly dangerous. Try not to look at the dog park, and especially do not look for any period of time at the hooded figures. The dog park will not harm you.